A proper attic has an aura of musty mystery and dark promise, full of past lives and recollections. A proper attic is a treasure waiting to be discovered and explored. Or a chamber of horrors, best left alone and undisturbed.
Aunt Vi had decided to have a massive summer cleaning and clearing out. She intended to show no mercy and sweep through her home like Sherman through Atlanta, unswayed by old memories or keepsakes. She was, she announced to my grandmother, done with clutter and foolish mementos and other dust collecting nonsense. She was going to wipe the slate clean of the debris of her life and enter a new age of precision and organization, an age she was determined would be knick knack free and ruled by clean lines and open spaces. No more piles of yellowing newspapers and magazines kept for God knew what reason, no more mismatched china or clothes that didn't fit, no more trunks filled with books or pressed flowers or gone out of style shoes or tarnished jewelry. Aunt Vi was on a mission forty years past due. Best you go fishing for a few days, dear, she advised her dazed husband briskly, This may unsettle you. She enlisted the Sullivan boys for the heavy work, got Mac to lend her his pick up truck for transport, farmed out the old cat for the duration, and began. She reached the attic in four days, exactly as she had planned, but then hit a snag. Amid the dust and disorganization, she discovered an old leather trimmed trunk with a rusty brass padlock, nearly hidden in a far corner as if it had been made intentionally inaccessible. There was no sign of a key and she had to break the lock with an old hammer and as she was doing so, she told Nana, a peculiar feeling came over her, Just like a premonition, Alice! and she backstepped in surprise, the hammer falling to the floor with a crash. Though not a superstitious woman, Aunt Vi decided to leave the attic for the nex day and descended
the stairs for an afternoon manhatten.
Several days later, my grandmother asked her how she was progressing and Aunt Vi shook her head dismally, It's foolishness, she told my grandmother, But I can't bring myself to open that damn trunk. Nana frowned, In heavens name, why not? she demanded and Aunt Vi looked away, color suddenly flushing her cheeks. Vi? my grandmother
leaned forward, a hint of concern mixed with curiosity in her voice, Vi, why can't you open the trunk? Aunt Vi lit a ciagarette, poured herself a second drink, fussed with the edge of the tablecloth, rearranged the sugar bowl and the salt and pepper shakers. Sitting in the rocking chair by the stove with Vi's old cat asleep in my lap, I noticed the silence and looked their way. They had drawn closer, heads together and whispering. Nana appeared to be impatient while Vi folded her arms across her chest and was shaking her head but I couldn't hear over the old cat's purring. Is there a ghost up in the attic? I asked and both women whirled and glared at me so fiercely that the cat woke and leapt out of my lap with an unhappy yowl. Little pitchers have big ears, my grandmother told Aunt Vi giving me her narrowed eyed look and telling me to go outside and play. Sounding braver than I felt, I asked if I could play in the attic instead and the two women responded instantly and in unison, NO!
Later that summer Aunt Vi finished her house cleaning and true to her word had uncluttered and organized the house down to the last detail. She threw out truckload after truckload of furnishings, chipped dishes and glassware, old clothes and a half dozen boxes of shoes, moldy books and broken appliances, drawers full of light bulbs and unused keys, fishing gear and empty pill bottles. She cleaned from top to bottom with a vengeance but up in the attic, the old trunk was left behind. It sat squarely in the center of the empty room and in the afternoons a halo of sunlight flooded over it, creating shadows and shapes that beckoned and called to Aunt Vi as she sat cautiously on the top attic step, just watching, thinking, resisting. She never allowed anyone into the attic ever again and though she spent hours watching the old trunk from the doorway, she never crossed the threshold again. After her death, Uncle Mel had it bound up and boxed and paid young William Ryan to take it several miles out past the passage and sink it, unopened.
No comments:
Post a Comment